16 comments:

On a very closely realated topic, how about the county bar association find the courage (somewhere) to rate judicial candidates? There are frequent comments here and in other forums that a) the bar association doesn't do much and b) most attorneys don't get involved. Do this and trust me, more members of the bar will get involved. Win, win. Except for poor quality caniddates.

The CCBA used to be involved in that and were partners with the newspaper. Then a reporter lambasted a judge with the lousy ratings. The Judge complained and the bar got out of it. Back then and even now, a lot of attorneys don't believe it is anonymous and decline to rate judges.

There is a bill pending in Arizona which would do away with "MeritSelection" as they call it in Arizona. A lot of folks want it changed here. With the selection system in Nevada---you get two judges named Gibbons and Johnson.

Jordan if the CCBA did a candidate survey, the voting public would not care. Additionally, the CCBA would not spend the money to publicize the results so voters would be even less likely to factor it into the voting. The CCBA is made up of voluntary membership and many Clark County lawyers would not even get a chance to vote. Lastly, the CCBA does NOTHING unless they can make money from it, so unless the survey put $ in their pockets, you are dreaming an impossible dream.

Most lawyers don't even rate the judges in the RJ survey. 902 lawyers rated the judges in 2013. Let's eliminate one third of those as lawyers with an ax to grind (often with judges who ruled against them). Now we have about 600 lawyers from a Clark County lawyer population of 5000 plus.

Bottom line: if Clark County lawyers don't care about rating the judges, why should the voters....regardless of who conducts the survey.

At one time back during the Bronze Age (or maybe it was the Iron Age) I believe the survey was done jointly by the CCBA and the RJ. The CCBA eventually dropped their sponsorship, I think due to pressure from certain people who were upset about snarky comments being published about certain people, or some typical bullshit of that nature.

January 19, 2016 at 11:19 AM - Actually I didn't mean to imply a survey, my apologies for not being clear. The ABA uses an insulated committee that conducts the reveiw and evaluation process on it's own and that becomes the offical ABA recommendation. I'm thinking an 11 member committee would be about right.

Article in the RJ about the Judicial Discipline Commission arranging hearings and proceedings to ban former judge Steve Jones from the bench for life. The Commission should not waste their(apparently quite limited) resources on such a charade. Consider the following.

1. Their budget and resources are very limited. They should not waste time setting proceedings on something that could never happen--that he is restored to the bench through the election process.

2.If they are so concerned about his lifetime ban, they could and should have included it with their earlier proceedings dis-barring him. Since he was permanently dis-barred, it goes without saying that he could never run for judge. They could have clarified the point at that time, but since they did not, there is no point in doing so now.3. The Commission claims there is a point in now having proceedings to bar him for life because, even with no longer being a licensed attorney, that he could conceivably run for a JP seat in some areas of the rurals where one need not be a judge. However, the RJ reports that according to the Commission, Jones running for a judicial seat of any sort would require a presidential pardon, due to the felony conviction. Does the Commission honestly believe that this democratic president would know about, or care about, some convicted Nevada divorce judge(who is a republican, by the way)and that he would consider a presidential pardon?!

None of it seems to make any sense. Overkill. Unnecessary expenditure of(apparently) very limited financial resources of the Commission.

Judge Jones reversed by the Ninth Circuit in Hage, another case involving the government that gets reassigned after reversal. I like Jones, but I'm staying to worry about his judicial demeanor / impartiality.

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